Data from a recent Glassnode report, titled, “The Expulsion of Bitcoin Tourists,” suggests that investors, who are short-term holders, which Glassnode describes as “market tourists,” are finally done selling off their Bitcoin holdings, leaving only long-term investors holding and transacting the flagship cryptocurrency. This indicates that the market selloff has significantly slowed and Bitcoin is prime for a bullish movement, possibly to $25,000 according to experts.
As previously reported by Nairametrics and also by Glassnode analysts, June saw Bitcoin have one of its worst-performing months in 11 years, with a loss of 37.9%. Glassnode further stated that activity on the Bitcoin network is at levels concurrent with the deepest part of the bear market in 2018 and 2019. The report stated, “The Bitcoin network is approaching a state where almost all speculative entities and market tourists have been completely purged from the asset.”
With this new information and the current push in the price of Bitcoin above $20,000 at the start of July, many analysts believe that the flagship cryptocurrency asset could hit $25,000 for the month, which would mean the market would reclaim its trillion-dollar status as fresh demand mounts into the market, as investors aim to take advantage of the current low prices compared to the start of the year.
What you should know
- Glassnode’s report noted a significant accumulation of Bitcoin seen in the market, stating that the balances of investors who are termed ‘shrimps’, which describes those holding less than 1 BTC, and whales, which describes those with 1,000 to 5,000 BTC, were “increasing meaningfully.”
- Shrimps, in particular, see the current Bitcoin prices as attractive and are accumulating it at a rate of almost 60,500 BTC per month, which Glassnode says is “the most aggressive rate in history,” equivalent to 0.32% of the BTC supply per month.
- Explaining the purge of these tourist-type investors, Glassnode revealed that both the number of active addresses and entities have seen a downtrend since November 2021, implying new and existing investors alike are not interacting with the network.
- Address activity has fallen from over 1 million daily active addresses in November 2021 to around 870,000 per day over the past week. Similarly, active entities, a collation of multiple addresses owned by the same person or institution, are now approximately 244,000 per day, which Glassnode says is around the “lower end of the “Low Activity” channel typical of bear markets.”
- Glassnode’s report further stated, “A retention of HODLers is more evident in this metric, as Active Entities is generally trending sideways, indicative of a stable base-load of users.”
- The growth of new entities has also dived to lows from the 2018 to 2019 bear market, with the user-base of Bitcoin hitting 7,000 daily net new entities.
- The transaction count remains “stagnant and sideways,” which indicates a lack of new demand but also means that holders are being retained through the market conditions.
- Driving home its point, Glassnode concluded that the number of addresses with a non-zero balance, those that hold at least some Bitcoin, continues to hit all-time-highs and is currently sitting at over 42.3 million addresses.
- Past bear markets saw a purge of wallets when the price of Bitcoin collapsed. Still, with this metric indicating otherwise, Glassnode says it shows an “increasing level of resolve amongst the average Bitcoin participant.”
Despite this bullish data, there is still cause for concern as macro-economic headwinds still exist. At the ECB forum held last week, a question was asked of central bankers on how the global economy was going to deal with a possible onslaught of interest rate hikes, which is the potential possibility of a recession. Central bankers responded and indicated that more rate hikes are possible in the future. Fed Chair Jerome Powell had this to say:
“We are raising interest rates, and the aim of that is to slow growth down so that supply will have a chance to catch up. We hope that growth could still remain positive. But if you look at the strength of the economy, households are in very strong financial shape, they’ve still got a lot of excess savings – from forced saving of not being able to travel and things like that – and fiscal transfers. The same thing is true with business, with very low rates of default and lots of cash on the balance sheet. The labor market is also tremendously strong, still averaging very high job growth per month. Overall, the U.S. economy is in the position to withstand tighter monetary policy, we think.”